NTDB Research Data Set and National Sample Program

The National Trauma Data Bank® (NTDB®) may be used for informational and research purposes with approval from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma. If you would like to request permission to reproduce NTDB tables or graphs or use the NTDB dataset for scientific analysis, you must complete our online data application and agree to our Terms and Conditions.

NTDB offers several Research Data Set (RDS) products. The NTDB RDS contains all records sent to NTDB for specified admission years. The NTDB National Sample Program (NSP) RDS are based on the nationally representative sample of NTDB. You may request the NTDB RDS or the NSP RDS for your research purposes. How do you choose NTDB RDS or NSP RDS?

The NTDB RDS contains all records sent to NTDB for each admission year. Use this dataset to explore data on pediatric patients, or Level III, IV, V, or undesignated trauma centers. If you are looking at small patient cohort, such as a specific injury or procedure, you may want to use the NTDB RDS because the overall number of patients is much larger. This data set is not appropriate for making national estimates or yearly comparisons.

You may view the fields available in the RDS in the respective user manuals (in order to determine if the datasets are suitable for your use, please carefully review the user manuals before submitting an application):